Energy Subsidies and Misdirection on Private versus Government Money

From NextBigFuture

Energy Information Agency calculation of per KWH support:
Source - subsidy and support in dollars per megawatt-hour (mills per kilowatt-hour)

• Nuclear - 1.59
• Biomass (and biofuels) - 0.89
• Geothermal - 0.92
• Hydroelectric - 0.67
• Solar- 24.34
• Wind - 23.37
• Landfill Gas - 1.37
• Municipal Solid Waste - 0.13
• Renewables (average) - 2.80

Total (average) -1.65

Energy subsidies in the US and around the world support all forms of energy.

US Energy subsidies, Management Information Service analysis of US energy funding of all kinds from 1950-2006

Feed in Tariff support of renewables around the world
* In spite of the feed in tariff and tax credits and rebates in the US which exceed nuclear on a KWH basis, more private money money must be added to build renewables. So Lovins is trying to spin the higher cost of solar as an advantage.

The reality...only one or two thin-film projects have brought product to market in 30 years, and it's a US $100M-$200M dollar up-front investment "just to play the game and see if your product really works."


Deaths per TWH (TeraWatt Hour) for different energy sources

Rooftop solar can be safer [0.44 up to 0.83 death per twh each year). If the rooftop solar is part of the shingle so you do not put the roof up more than once and do not increase maintenance then that is ok too. Or if you had a robotic system of installation.

World average for coal is about 161 deaths per TWh.

• In the USA about 30,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 2000 TWh. 15 deaths per TWh.
• In China about 500,000 deaths/year from coal pollution from 1800 TWh. 278 deaths per TWh.

Wind power proponent and author Paul Gipe estimated in Wind Energy Comes of Age that the mortality rate for wind power from 1980–1994 was 0.4 deaths per terawatt-hour. Paul Gipe's estimate as of end 2000 was 0.15 deaths per TWh, a decline attributed to greater total cumulative generation.

Hydroelectric power was found to have a fatality rate of 0.10 per TWh (883 fatalities for every TW·yr) in the period 1969–1996

Nuclear power is about 0.04 deaths/TWh?